WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE; Spain: Flaps Failed On Plane

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 17, 2008

Wing flaps that help lift a plane on takeoff failed on a Spanair flight that crashed last month in Madrid, and an alarm to warn pilots of the problem never sounded, according to an initial report on the accident released Tuesday. Investigators did not say whether they thought the problem with the wing flaps caused the Aug. 20 crash, in which 154 people were killed. The investigators also said they needed to study further a malfunction of an air temperature gauge outside the cockpit. Spanair has described the malfunction as a minor glitch, but the report said the faulty gauge might have been linked to the failure of the cockpit alarm. The alarm is supposed to sound when a plane is not properly configured to take off.